Field of the Invention
The present application relates to the field of electronics, and more particularly, to methods of forming electronic component packages and related structures.
Description of the Related Art
To form an electronic component package, an electronic component is mounted to a substrate. The substrate includes traces on the same surface of the substrate to which the electronic component is mounted. Bond wires are formed to electrically connect bond pads of the electronic component to the traces.
To protect the electronic component as well as the bond wires, the electronic component and bond wires are covered in an encapsulant. The traces extend from under the encapsulant to an exposed area of the surface of the substrate outside of the periphery of the encapsulant, i.e., not covered by the encapsulant. The traces include terminals on the exposed area of the substrate outside of and around the encapsulant.
Solder balls are formed on the terminals. These solder balls extend from the substrate to a height greater than the height of the encapsulant to allow the solder balls to be electrically connected to a larger substrate such as a printed circuit motherboard.
However, the solder balls are substantially spherical in shape. Thus, forming the solder balls with a height greater than the height of the encapsulant places fundamental restrictions on minimizing the pitch of the solder balls.